Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[anthonyj]

If you are feeling pain
analyze your acceptance of the group think around here
consider how little you know about the accepted thought leaders here

Bears and negativity are negatively rewarded
shamed or banned
and yet, they have been the only ones correct for months now

only price pays...Brian Shannon

The bears have cried wolf too many times, which caused people in an investor forum to be blind optimists. I’ve shared my skepticism here a few times and ive asked questions I “shouldn’t have” and people accused me as a paid troll or whatever. Because I suggest that Tesla should advertise? And that people that I run into don’t even know what a Tesla is... Lol. Some asked me to post my position, which I did, and then I was told that I photoshopped it. Okay. Might as well rename this thread to echo chamber.

 

[jerry33]

And in the grand scheme of things, how many do know a Tesla owner, first-degree? Yes, the number is rapidly increasing, but we should not fool ourselves: EVs are still quite niche-y. It's dumbfoundedly easy to come up with fake myths and stories and that's exactly what they do.

In the long run, the smear campaign and bias-belted tires did not stop radial tires from overtaking the marketplace and bankrupting most of the companies that created the FUD. However, it took about 45 years to happen. If we start with modern BEV deliveries December 1996 with the EV1, we've only had 22 years of modern BEV production. And tires are a lot easier to replace than cars.

In another note GM's $7,500 tax credit expired April 1.

 

[Antares Nebula]

It isn't, but a 56% drop in combined X and S deliveries is probably higher than anyone was expecting.

I don't think it's that unreasonable. 15k would have been better. But if you consider seasonality (every year), and then tax credit drop off, and m3 cannabilization, I could see 15k. So a little below MY expectations. (I was expecting 60 + 15)

 

[Artful Dodger]

I can't imagine MXWL shareholders want to tender their shares now if they didn't last week.

Lol, you think Tesla needs to own the company to use their technology? Every hear of licensing? The two are separate issues. Cheers!

 

[sundaymorning]

So...

1. I have a project for the evening - I need to go out and hunt a crow for supper.

2. My approach, of estimating production from paint shop capacity, completely failed. Don't know why. The only upside is that since they've clearly had line downtime, I hope they've been doing every time they had downtimes in 2018, which was upgrading the lines to higher capacity and lower production costs. Extra paint capacity in particular would be greatly welcomed.

3. I stupidly woke up briefly to check the deliveries numbers, and immediately regretted it, as I could hardly sleep all night after that. One of the worst night's sleep of my life. Comparable to, and possibly worse than, a night I spent on the sight of a mountain tethered to a crumbling cliff face that was periodically shedding chunks with a loud crash all night.

Ugh. But, onward.

To console you a bit the Model X days were much worse. Try to be more balanced in your views, Listen to Z, he’s been quite balanced in his views.

 

[bhtooefr]

By the way, it's over 10% down now. If it's still that way in 1h22m, uptick rule time.

 

[AlexS]

I don't know how far it will drop today and if we will see new lows in next days. But I still think this bloodbath could have been softer if Tesala gave solid Q2 guidance. why they are not doing it I don't understand.

 

[Artful Dodger]

967,998 shares traded in the Pre-market today before 08:00 am EDT

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) Pre-Market Trading

 

[Singuy]

Harambe = Tesla.

Musk was trying to tell us something all along....

 

[anthonyj]

I don't know how far it will drop today and if we will see new lows in next days. But I still think this bloodbath could have been softer if Tesala gave solid Q2 guidance. why they are not doing it I don't understand.

Because they can’t gauge demand. EV is a niche market and won’t fully break the ICE market until consumers are educated. People that live on the forum all day don’t realize that people have no idea about Teslas and electric cars. “Oh, but I don’t want to have to charge it a few times a day” “is there a gas tank for backup?” “What if I want to drive more than 50 miles a day?” “What if Tesla goes out of business and I can’t get service?” Etc

 

[sundaymorning]

This f*cking company, man. This ****ing company.

Grey hairs, lots of burned cash, I'm out for now … for first time since 2016. This hurts a lot.

What worries me is not today's PD report per se – those "material" problems can be "fixed" starting with Q2 – but rather my realisation how FUD completely undermined Tesla's narrative for far, far too long now. The FUD is well planted in the head of the majority of people by now and you won't be able to get it out of their brain for years and years to come. No matter how good the product is. Now, the PD report will catalyse the FUD machine further.

It's painfully obvious that 95% of media, WS and other wealthy entities want to see Tesla fall, for whatever reason, and I see no hope that they'll let go from their goal anytime soon.

Direct communication via Twitter and funny memes are sadly not enough to revert public's consensus on Tesla; the following might land me quite a few dislikes on here, but what I think Tesla needs more than anything else right now are the most brilliant spin doctors and lawyers they can possibly find.

They totally neglected the public-facing narrative while riding on the wave of hype and underdog-ism. This worked fine for the enthusiasts like us – but we were sold on the grand idea behind Tesla anyway.

But guess what, Tesla, you're now a grown-up company. Act like one. You're now addressing the mainstream. Fight the BS FUD. Denounce, sue FUDsters, pull all the levers if necessary. For Christ's sake, do something.

Again: You can't win if you're not in control of the narrative.

I agree we a spin doctor. As a matter of fact we have about 1,000 amateur Tesla spin doctors here. Get out there and spin folks. Take to Twitter, yahoo, MSN, CNBC, FB, Instagram and post something positive and informative.

 

[Remus]

Also, of course, there will be lots more SR and SR+ deliveries in Q2 but the demand for these was never as strong as Long-Range versions. People want longer range.

So you are saying few people want the expensive ones and even fewer want the cheaper ones.

If that is true then there is no point investing in Tesla at all.

Before the model 3 days, model S 75D was out selling the 100D, right? that might be a better indicator than online survey?

 

[KarenRei]

Harambe = Tesla.

Musk was trying to tell us something all along....

That's the only thing in all this that rubs me the wrong way. Wrong about how quickly you could deliver overseas? Had to revert to a fallback plan of focusing on domestic, too late to get your numbers up? Okay. I got that. This sort of geographic expansion is difficult. It's understandable.

But try not to act all happy and distracted if you have bad news coming up.

 

[Causalien]

Can you please quickly recap or point me to the posts with the rationale for "raising cash now is unnecessary and counterproductive" ?

Raising cash on weakness have the effect of severely diluting shares and causing stock price collapse. Previous Tesla sp increase from raising cash should be seen as an outlier. I do not think raising cash today is a good idea as it will feed into the FUD of them running out of cash. And having enough cash on hand is a narrative they've been using to assure the bulls as well.

 

[bhtooefr]

But try not to act all happy and distracted if you have bad news coming up.

Unless this was the good news.

 

[sundaymorning]

FUD does cause long-time and often irreversible damage to a brand.

You don't have to look far for an example in the automotive industry: Opel.

It's a well-known fact that VW's massive FUD campaign in the 80s and 90s, together with EU-wide help of media – most notably the German car magazine "Auto Bild" and its sister magazines – positioned the formerly well-respected Opel brand in such a way that they became toxic to most. Actually, Opel is still the laughingstock in the German automotive scene. They have yet to recover from this smear campaign.

FUD sure does work, this is why we really need to get out there and fight back. We also need Tesla to start hiring spin doctors to start a antiFUD team. We also need Elon to be more restraint in his tweets and interviews. He needs to realize the media and tweeter bears exist to coax him into being negative. Don’t throw them a bone, don’t give them what they want.

On the bright side, 50,000 new Model 3 owners got their car this quarter. Short interest is declining and I doubt they can counter the consistent growing number of Model 3 owners around the world. In my view shorts’ days are numbered. In the meantime, keep focus and be methodical.

 

[KarenRei]

Unless this was the good news.

Nobody would have looked at these numbers and thought, "This is good news".

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Isn't this pretty much what was guided? Are we 10% below delivery expectations?

CNBC of course has it quoted as "deliveries down 31%". Where's that come from? Not 4Q, right?

 

[Causalien]

That's the only thing in all this that rubs me the wrong way. Wrong about how quickly you could deliver overseas? Had to revert to a fallback plan of focusing on domestic, too late to get your numbers up? Okay. I got that. This sort of geographic expansion is difficult. It's understandable.

But try not to act all happy and distracted if you have bad news coming up.

I see you've reached that disillusioned phase towards Elon that most of us went through. It'll make you a better investor.

 

[X Fan]

Ahaha, you do realize that there are exactly two v3 Supercharger locations in existance right now? And the rollout will take years to complete replacement of the v2 sites? And S/X DC wiring can be upgraded w/o a major refresh when the time comes?

Don't buy into too much of the drama the shortz are pumping. Most of the drop is due to the expiry of the US $7,500 tax credit. It pulled forward most of the demand from 2019Q1 into 2018Q4. Then Tesla was prepared for that, so they suspended one of three shifts on the S/X line, which miraculously cut production by a third.

And the ones they built were of the highest margin variety, after discontinuing the 75D version. So volume may be down, but with higher gross margins, the new mix may have similar gross profit, while freeing up a demand lane for the most profitable M3P versions.

The good news for S/X sales? There are roughly ZERO of them remaining in transit at the end of Q1. If demand was a problem, they'd malinger on Tesla lots getting photobombed by shortie air farce cadets. Instead, they all sold and the $$ is in the bank.

Yeah, it'll be fine. It just takes time, effort, and patience. Executing a multi-year plan here. Be well, do good!

Cheers!

Good stuff....only thing that worries me is whether they lowered the sale price so much that GM is lower than we anticipate.

OTOH, there should be an uplift from self driving software sales.